Up Front by Emma Hart

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Up Front: Making It Better

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  • Gee,

    okay so this is tangential but have just found a new site aimed at stopping victim-blaming and slut-shaming

    Canada, eh • Since May 2011 • 78 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic,

    John Armstrong of the Granny notices a glaring gender inconsistency among recent welfare reform changes. One would think Minister Bennett would apply her ‘tough love’ to deadbeat dads as much as DPB mothers. Do the usual suspects really think child support collectors would be greeted with a 12-gauge at the front door? Or is it a mild case of barefoot & pregnantism?

    And the Most Hypocritical American award goes to Newt Gingrich, for promoting Contract With America without telling his fellow Americans that he's a deadbeat dad.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • David Hood,

    Just on children in protests, I found this story (from recent Russian protests) well worth a read. To repeat here the bit I read out aloud to the household

    There was a phalanx of riot police on this bridge, too, blocking another route to the Kremlin. In front of them stood a young brunette in a short red dress and wedge platform shoes. She was waving the orange flag of the opposition Solidarity movement, and, judging by the expression on her face, she thought she was Moscow’s Lady Liberty—the icon of the protest. I thought she was, too. It was just so Russian: a woman in heels, even during a violent protest, self-consciously, calculatingly, making herself into a consumable, sexy image while those around her talked about fair elections and Putin’s villainy.
    I was wrong. My friend, Olaf Koens, a Dutch reporter, had the better eye. (He does some television work.) But after hours of documenting the violence, his iPhone was dead. He smacked my arm and said, “Look! Look! There’s the picture!”

    New Yorker blog entry

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Lilith __, in reply to Kumara Republic,

    Minister Bennett would apply her ‘tough love’ to deadbeat dads

    Quite. And I hate how Bennett uses the rhetoric of reproductive choice to say that women have to take charge of contraception because men are too unreliable!

    Bennett said because women were most affected by pregnancy, they needed the support.

    "I agree it is a mutual responsibility, but women want to take responsibility for their own bodies and choices, and this means they can, because it is not saying it's all their fault, rather that it's them who ends up carrying the baby, so they want to be sure they take precautions."

    She said although men could receive funded vasectomies, women always took a risk in trusting a man was safe.

    "I have women tell me their partner said not to worry because everything was safe. Are you going to take that risk?"

    Source.

    But this brilliance cheered me up.

    Dunedin • Since Jul 2010 • 3895 posts Report Reply

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